Free Patterns and Tutorials

Where I'm Featured

I've been dyeing, sewing, painting, drawing, beading and felting in Denver, Colorado for quite some time. I especially love starting with a blank piece of paper or fabric and coming up with my own designs from scratch.

I've been making art dolls for several decades and out of this evolved my cloth pins and ornaments. Each one is like a miniature version of my larger art dolls.
My pins and ornaments are first sewn of good quality white cotton fabric and then stuffed with polyfill. Then they're hand dyed, hand painted and finally beaded. A pin back is sewn securely on the back of the pins. Because of the nature of the hand dyeing, no two are ever exactly alike.
My spouse loves to spin and weave, and I dye warps for his beautiful handwoven scarves.
I've been painting my entire life and especially love to paint in a celtic or medieval style, but pure fantasy is also great fun.
The well fleshed orange kitty that my shop is named after is Donovan who has his own web site.

Friday, January 2, 2009

This is a tutorial for making a simple small doll using a pattern made with freezer paper. The pattern is in the previous post: Free Doll Pattern

I've been making small dolls virtually my whole life, but when I discovered the use of freezer paper about a decade ago, it made my life quite a bit easier. Freezer paper has a plastic coating on one side that enables it to temporarily stick to fabric without leaving any residue when removed and the pattern can be used over and over again. I have some freezer paper patterns that are 5 years old and have been used hundreds of times, although they are getting a bit ratty with use.

Freezer paper can be found in the grocery store and comes in a roll. Some cloth doll supply companies even sell it in nice flat sheets that can be used in your printer.

I draw all my pattern prototypes directly on the freezer paper, but you can see through it enough to trace a pattern on it too. Draw the pattern on the paper side of the freezer paper, not the plastic side.

Once the pattern is drawn on the freezer paper, cut the pattern out right along the line. This will be your sewing line.

Double the fabric, wrong sides out. Since we're using a fairly hot iron, I recommend a cotton fabric. My favorite fabrics are Southern Bell and the Egyptian cotton fabric sold at Joann's Fabrics because they have a nice tight smooth weave that makes it easier to turn tiny cloth dolls without seam blow outs. Iron the pattern plastic side down onto the wrong side of the fabric using a dry iron. Now, some irons get hot enough to melt the plastic coating on cotton setting, so if you have a hot iron, use wool setting. My old iron doesn't melt the plastic even on the hottest setting, but it's old and well used. If in doubt, use a cooler setting and if the pattern doesn't stick, bump up the heat to the next level.

Let the pattern cool on the fabric.

Sew right up along the edge of the pattern using a tiny stitch. I set my old Singer to stitch setting 15. Leave an area open for turning as indicated on the pattern.

Wow! You make the coolest things! We especially like the cat stuff! Mom wishes she was so creative! We want to wish you a Happy New Year and a very Prosperous 2009! Say hello to Donavan for us! Can you send us his blog address so we can add him to our Blogroll!! We had it once, but when Blogrolling failed we lost a lot of our links! Thanks!Your FL furiends,

Great tip! I can use the freezer paper for felting projects! Thank you so much. Love your blog and your works. Donovan is adorable. We have a wonderful loving cat named Peaches, and a red-nosed pit bull named Kelly Rose (she's Irish in our eyes!) Nice to connect with you, and thank you for visiting my blog.

She's darling and whether or not you plan on following a tutorial I always think its so fun to see the process!I've enjoyed your blog and wanted to pass on an award I got today ~hope you have the time!Details are on my blog :)

Donovan, the cat,look like my male cat,Toto! Did you ever see the fiberglass cats in CAtskill, nY?! They have like 60 of them, made by artists ,along the street! Hudson had dogs!! I have a photo on my blog if you click the link to my website Artzstuf and then got to mixed photos. Toto's pic is there too!!